Centerfield

Libertarian - Social Liberal, 75% Permissive

- Economic Conservative, 61% Permissive

That's why I'm the only jerk up at this time of night. Those questions, some of them, drive me nuts, or at least annoy me. I usually have a gut reaction, but then I really read the question as literally as possible, and start thinking "Well, gee-whiz, would I really say 'most?'" and crap like that. It's okay. I like being labelled a libertarian. It makes me feel macho.

I didn't quite make it to the Center... I was dissapointed.

Check it out Here...

Social Liberal (75% Permissive)
Economic Moderate (41% Permissive)

Where I disagree with the test is in how it assesses the answers. The twits lumped me in the the Dems.

On social issues I see myself as much more of a libertarian than a liberal. Each might vote to allow the exact same thing (insert controversial issue d'jour), but won't necessarily come at it from the same philosophical premise. There are plenty of things that I don't personally approve of, like abortion or gun ownership, but which I think should be permissible because I believe in personal freedoms first and foremost. To me that's more of a libertarian perspective than it is a liberal perspective.

Test said I was a centrist, a social moderate and an economic conservative.

I felt the test was quite poorly designed, many of the questions were not indicitive of ideology so much as the question writer's own biases.

Social Liberal (61% permissive)
Economic Conservative (66% permissive)

I share the concerns about the worth of the individual questions on the quiz. But I have to admit the overall result seems about right (for me, at least). My results are generally consonant with the other political quizzes I've run across — I seem to be turning into some sort of libertarian crank as I age.

You are a

Social Liberal
(73% permissive)

Economic Liberal
(35% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat
You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.
Yeah, that's me.

Scoial Moderate 56% and Economic Conservative 60%, leaving me a centrist in the libertarian quarter. What a surprise, eh? Echo the "stupid questions" comments. We used to design short questionaires like this for market research--they're designed to force you to choose an answer that fits the scales and pushes you into one of the general response boxes, not to go in-depth. Anything designed to give a closer look would have vaguer questions and a lot more of them. With this one, you can make it label you as anything you want it to just by paying attention.

What Kevin said about abortion and gun control. E.g.: I don't have to "favor" abortion to want it kept legal, but the test gives zero nuanced options. It's all either/or, strong or weak.

I liked the fill-in-the-blank question. My response to the "one law enforced by goons" was to have the goons spend all their time annoying each other.

I'm stephanie's SO....strangely enough... 75% and 35%...so I'm even more liberal muwHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA MUWHAHAHAHHAHHHAHHAA muwhahahahahahahhaha

now where's that "How much of a dork are you?" quiz? I could use a 100% one of these days! ;-)

Social Moderate
(55% permissive)
Economic Liberal
(38% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Centrist

I ran into the same trouble as Kevin. I support gun control on people with felonies or psychotic issues, I'm pro-choice until Plan B is fully available as an OTC drug, etc.

As an economic liberal though? It's funny, I've always seen myself as a moderate to slightly left on social issues, but fairly moderate to slightly right on economic issues.

Wes, you could change your answers by one move either way on two questions and swing yourself 15%. Simplistic tests produce simplistic (and forced) answers.

I'm all in favor of convicted felons not having guns, and firmly against eight-month healthy fetuses being aborted for reasons of contraceptive convenience. I also think law-abiding citizens have a Constitutional right to own small arms (not including automatic weapons) and that first-trimester abortion should remain safe and legal. Does that make me "in favor of" or "against" gun control, or "in favor of" or "against" abortion?

As with most issues, there's one heck of a lot of middle ground between the extremes, but the ideologues love only the endpoints.

And some of the liberal/conservative questions swing both ways (economics AND social views). Double-weighted questions. You can't be in favor of entitlements without being in favor of the spending required. No free lunch.

True. And some of the questions were open ended, like "Parents raising children have a responsibility to live up to society's standards." Well, if said standards mean refraining from things like lying and drunk driving, then I would agree. But if they include, say, having a heterosexual relationship then I would disagree.

So what quadrant would that put me in?

Todd: How did you post a jpg?

Bob--he copied their graphics/link coding and pasted it in. You can only do that in the original postings, not in replies.

Jean, extremely subjective question, you betcha. They use an undefined external reference. How do YOU define "society's standards"? Me, I go with "live and let live" and "keep your nose out of other people's business if they're not adversely impacting you or others." That's how I raise my kids.

I don't think he actually "posted" an externally linked jpg, the program grabbed the images externally and "logged" them. One of our more code-savvy posters can maybe explain it--it's beyond my feeble HTML knowledge. I note that Explorer says it's an html doc and not a jpg.

Tully,

I agree with you; as long as families are within the laws, raising their kids with love and no violence (or as little as possible, anyway ;-), then they're OK in my book. Glad you're raising your kids that way. :-)

One of the things that has me thinking is the question of rights. I came out libertarian, which does make sense, but with some qualification. I really don't see how someone can have a right that necessarily requires someone else to provide that person something. Call it an entitlement, like health care.

But I don't hold the view that government necessarily shouldn't provide something if society can afford it and there is a consensus that it is worthwhile, like health care. I wouldn't dogmatically leave such things to the market if I felt government could effectively provide them. But I also don't think that such a view must lead one to believe that there is a right involved.

Rights to me, at least for the most part, are limitations on what governement can prevent someone from doing. They are not things that government does for someone. I've taken a total of zero political science courses (unless you count high school civics), but I think I read something about positive rights versus negative rights at some point that relates to this.

Does anyone want to fill me in on the academics of what I'm getting at? I'm very sure I'm not having any original thoughts here.

I actually agree with you 100% on guns, Tully. After posting my comment I thought about amending it with another comment because I actually don't have a problem with guns at all. In fact I like guns, having done quite a bit of shooting when I was younger... including assault rifles which are a LOT of fun to shoot.

My personal stance on private gun ownership has more to do with the Biblical adage that those who live by the sword (gun) tend to die by the sword (gun). So, I figure that, in theory at least, if I don't own a gun then I'm less likely to be killed by a gun. I like to think of my stance as... preemptive karma. ;-)

I actually agree with your stance on abortion too. Although I am officially agnostic even on 1st trimester abortions. I've long thought that both extremes on the subject make a few valid points with their arguments. But, I'm thus far unable to reconcile them into a cohesive stance so I err on the side of freedom by supporting legal abortion.

Bob,

The html code was produced by the test site. I just cut and pasted it.

Social Moderate: 55% permissive
Economic Moderate: 55% permissive

Ever so slightly North East of the Centrist cross-hairs. Guess I'm hanging out in the appropriate websites.

Social Liberal (61% permissive)
and an...
Economic Moderate (43% permissive)

You are best described as a:Centrist

You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

That's pretty accurate. Although I acknowledge the objections of the others to the questions, I was able to reason/rationalize my way to choosing an answer that suited me and felt defensible. Far from perfect. I especailly didn't like the one that said something like "since parents can't properly supervise their children...."

Some of the others 8i defuse by going very literal. I agreed with being "in favor" of "gun control" because I'm Ok with some reasonable controls. I'm "in favor" of abortion because I think it's Ok to let people have this option under many circumstances.

Yeah, Kevin, real assault rifles ARE a lot of fun to shoot! About once a year I get to "rip a clip" or two at the police range, under supervision. AR-15's and once an MP-5. Woo hoo! Keeping them in the hands of FBI-backgrounded folks willing to hang with the BATF and state regs and pay the enormous annual license/regisration fees is just fine by me. (In Kansas even that's not possible--NO private ownership of full autos allowed. Law enforcement and military only.)

The semi-auto lookalikes just aren't the same. They're just rifles you don't have to reload as often (if you have big magazines in 'em, that is). And most of the "assault rifle" calibers are too light for deer, which limits their general usefullness to plinking and defense and hi-power long-distance target shooting.

I come from a long line of doctors, one of whom was an OB in Texas when Roe was passed. I know too much to want to see abortion completely banned. I don't have to like it to know that the results of a full ban would be very nasty indeed. Illegal abortion is one of the biggest killers and maimers of women under 45 in places where legal abortion is not available. Someone else can argue about the "morality" involved, as far as I'm concerned the ugly reality of illegal abortion speaks for itself.

Tully, my experience is only with the civilian semi-auto version of assault rifles. A Ruger Mini-14 to be specific. It was one of my buddy's many guns. It was a lot of fun to shoot at night because it kicked out an impressive bluish flame out of the end of the barrel. He had 30-round magazines for it. So, we could fire off an impressive number of rounds as fast as we could pull the trigger, which was a lot of fun.

This same guy was something of an anarchist and knew how to reconfigure guns to shoot full-auto. Although I don't believe he ever did so with the Mini-14, he did rig a Ruger 10/22 with a 50 round magazine to fire full-auto. I shot it a few times. But, for some reason it would jam after about 10-15 rounds. It was a real hoot to shoot for those first few seconds, though!

He also had an assault semi-auto 12-guage shotgun with a 10-round tube that he rigged for full-auto. I don't understand the mechanics of it but apparently whatever he did to rig it that way reduced the capacity to just 2 shells. It sounded like a single round going off, though... that's how quickly it reloaded and fired the second shell.

the test was badly designed if you ask me.

My survey came out that I can best be described as a Capitalist:

SOCIAL MODERATE (50% permissive)
ECONOMIC CONSERVATIVE (75% permissive)

Makes sense overall, as I have a blog geared towards black moderates and conservatives, and I have previously indicated that I am a fiscal conservative, social moderate, and foreign policy moderate. And yes, I am a staunch capitalist. Some of the questions were tough though, as I was thinking, "Well, it depends on the situation..."

Social Liberal (66% permissive)
Economic Liberal (35% permissive)
Democrat

"You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness..."

Hmmm... Not what I thought. Maybe Carla is right. Maybe I have shifted to the left. Very interesting questions.

41% Permissive, 56% economic liberal = Centrist. That's about right BUT an odd test.

Pretty much it makes you out to be a centrist unless you give it answers that throw you way out along one axis or another.

Here's the deal - the test is just for fun and it's clearly flawed. I think a better test would be to find what people are willing to accept instead of what they want. That would be a nice gauge to see who is willing to go along with a centrist making policy decisions, and who is too committed to their vision to see anything less than it.

If someone can find/make a test like that, I'll buy them a coke.

Here's the deal - the test is just for fun and it's clearly flawed.

Clever Wes nailed it exactly. Willingness to accept is what truly defines one as a Centrist (in my opinion). I suppose some of that comes into play with "strongly agree" vs just saying "agree". Still, the test was fun to take.

I agree with Todd and Wes.

I would just add that my own approach to Centrists has never been predicated on me holding to a bunch of Centrist positions. Rather, the huge attraction of Centrists in my eyes is the lack of an ideologically driven agenda. I don't trust idealogues of any stripe. I don't believe that for most of them the notion of being honest about their intentions is a starting point. Whereas, my perception is that the polar opposite tends to be true of Centrists. Even if I disagree with a given proposal by a given Centrist, at least I feel that I can trust that he/she is being straight with me.

You mean we wasted 30 posts "just for fun"!

I think that half the time most of us speak is just to hear ourselves speak anyway. In that sense, there is no such thing as a wasted post. ;)

Sorry to do back to back posts, but Kevin's post wasn't there when I had originally began my post... and I like to hear myself talk.

I've never really had a problem with a lot of Republicans or Democrats even if they were idealogues. I don't feel that there really is a widespread correct answer on any issue. Different people weigh things differently. What might be important and have significant value to me, might be something that someone like Todd might not care about.

I've always felt that if someone can defend their position and why it's valuable to them to the point where they don't want to compromise on it, then I'm ok with that. It doesn't mean I agree with them or am willing to change my view, but at least I can see that they're not just being tugged by their respective party. I can respect someone like that.

I scored 71% permissive for both Social Liberal and Economic Conservative.

I quite wonder what the assumptions are behind some of the questions. For example:

"The fact that many people starve to death is unfortunate but unavoidable."

I answered "strongly disagree." Given the history of dictators both grand and petty (the Mao to Mugabe scale) I think of anti-starvation as the opposite of totalitarianism. In other words, starvation is prevented by good governance and market economics. But I wonder if that's the way my "strongly disagree" is interpreted.

That's one of those questions you have read clearly. The word "many" is the key in my mind. If it read "some" or "a few" I might have answered differently. I'm not so sure that a lot of people really read the questions literally, rather than taking what they think is the gist and going with their immediate gut response.

You are a

Social Liberal
(65% permissive)

and an...

Economic Conservative
(60% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Centrist

...a Centrist Libertarian...I'm right on the line...

I tend to think that all these tests suffer fromthe basic problem that mathematics is per se an inadequate language to describe matters such as ideology. Also, I think some of these questions are badly worded - "do you think ethnicity is an advantage in getting into college" could be asking several different questions, depending on how you read it.

But anyway, my score was:

You are a Social Moderate (41% permissive) and an Economic Moderate (56% permissive). You are best described as a: Centrist. So there you go - a Republican-leaning Centrist. I'm hanging out with all the rest of you roadkill on the double yellow line. ;)

Hmmm... Not what I thought. Maybe Carla is right. Maybe I have shifted to the left. Very interesting questions.

Carla is often correct...and sometimes doesn't get her due here at Centerfield. :)

Actually I've seen a lot of folks move to the left over the last several years. It's interesting to see people's ideology morph away from the right as they see the results of conservative and neoconservative policies.

By the way..I was just telling Kevin today that I know that most of you all love me here, despite your articulated exasperation. LOL